The flute didn’t look like it possessed any extraordinary abilities. It looked like the kind that Tala saw at a typical store that sold similar musical instruments. It was lying on top of a large slab of stone in the center of the room, and small rays of light from somewhere above the cavern just so happened to be trained on it like a well-placed spotlight.
Across the cave from them stood Vivien Fey. She was still carrying her wind fan, already raised. Another exit to the cave stood behind her, obviously where she had emerged from. With her were the shadows with the now-horrifyingly familiar patchwork of legs and arms, some sporting more than was the human norm.
She moved just as Loki did, both of them racing toward the flute, trying to get there before the other could, but reaching it at nearly the same time.
The flute did not appreciate this.
A sudden explosion threw them both backward. Loki hit the ground and rolled effortlessly, getting back on their feet quickly enough. Vivien took longer, staggering. The flute lay exactly where it had been before.
“Is this another trick?” Vivien hissed. Her clothes were dirty and her face smudged black, hair in tangles. That she had not gone through the mountain’s curse unscathed was evident.
“We’re not going to let you take the flute, Fey,” Loki said angrily.
“I’ve had to endure this dratted Hamelin mountain insulting my dead sister. I won’t be coming out of here empty-handed.” She started, turning to address something that wasn’t there. “And don’t you dare say that about her!”
A sharp gesture from her slashed at the side of the cave, leaving a groove several inches deep in the wall. Another tore toward them, and it was Tito Boy, expertly weaving his own abanico to cut the incoming attack in half, who halted its progress.
And then everything turned to chaos.
The magic was thicker here, Tala realized. She could sense it now when she hadn’t during the journey, which meant the effects on them would be much worse. No wonder Brandt had said that there were many cases of people going insane the closer they neared the center.
None of the Banders were at the point yet that they would actually draw weapons against each other, thanks to Kusanagi, but the anger was real.
“I can hold my own just fine!” West yelled, clapping his hands over his head. “My accomplishments are my own and not my family’s! I was the antifa dog! I inspired people! You can’t tell me I haven’t done anything worth talking about!”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” Ken asked Nya heatedly. “Am I boring to you now? Do you think I’m going to ditch you or something just because the world’s watching me, waiting for me to mess up?”
“Of course not!” Nya snapped. “What I’m doing right now is protecting you!”
“Protecting?” Ken’s eyes narrowed. Both seemed to have forgotten that Vivien Fey and her band of shades were even there. “What are you doing behind my back that means you need to protect me, Rapunzel? Because you’ve been awfully secretive since we returned from the Ryugu-jo.”
“I can’t tell you right now!”
“Another secret? Like you didn’t learn from the last time you decided not to tell me that you were, I dunno, a freaking mermaid? Do you really want us to go through all that again?”
“No, but I don’t have a choice!” Nya’s eyes filled with tears. “Someone filmed Grandma and the other villagers fighting at the Sea of Japan. There’s talk now of hunters who want to get more illegal ports into Avalon to start hunting us all over again!”
“And I want to help you, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what you and your grandma are even planning!”
“There’s no use talking about it,” Cole said, sounding about as gloomy as someone like him could be, his previous rage dissipated. “I’ve accepted what’s going to happen, and so should you.”
“And you’re going to break up with me because you think you’re going to die?” Zoe challenged him.
“It’s not like this is going to last, is it?”
“I want to shake you so hard right now! You really think so little of me that you expect me to give up on us?”
Ryker had staggered back. He was leaning against the wall, his face suddenly pale.
“What’s wrong?” Tala asked, but he merely shook his head at her, his hand clutching one side of his head like he was in pain.
“I can—I can hear them,” he rasped. “Farah, Kari, Ben—so many others.” He turned his head. “Are they here?” he asked desperately.
“It’s all in your head. You have to fight it.”
“But you don’t understand. I want them to be real. If they’re real, then that means they escaped her. They can’t—” He let out a quiet sob. “I can’t. They can’t be gone. I won’t let them be gone.”
The fight had revolved mainly around Vivien, Loki, and the other soldiers. The woman was blocking most of their blasts with ease, simply using the fan to deflect any projectiles coming her way. It was harder to shake off Loki and their staff, which was also good at warding off the sharp gusts of wind she was tossing in their direction. Even the shades were not immune to the powerful curse, stopping in their tracks to waver briefly whenever Vivien did, and Tala realized they were affected by it because they shared some strange link to the former OzCorp employee.
“Give it up,” Vivien snarled. “You fight on the wrong side of history.”
“You’re the one controlling the nightmare body horrors,” Tala snapped. “You tell me if that looks like you’re on the right side of history.”
She smiled. “Even shades are a finite resource in Beira. It was easier to imbue a part of their essences into corpses. My time at OzCorp taught me to both economize and innovate, even if their executives were greedy fools.”
Loki’s staff swept through the crowd of corpse shades. Several leaped toward them with a snarl but were immediately waylaid by another shadow—one that possessed none of their human limbs. It punched one hard and then swiveled around for a fistfight with several more.
Tala realized, even as she was focusing all her strength into warding the other shades away from both her and the still-despondent Ryker, that this looked like the same shadow that had been with her at the Ryugu-jo, likely the same one that had fought with them at the Burn as well.
“You think you had it bad?” Vivien’s lips twisted into a pained grimace. “At least you have a good family who cares about you. What did I have? Parents who thought I was a good-for-nothing, who spent my whole childhood mocking me for being odd. Who later saw me as nothing but a paycheck to support their lifestyle. All I had was Abigail, and even she was taken away from me. I have nothing now. You don’t know how good you’ve got it, and you still think you’ve been wronged?”
“And you believe the Snow Queen’s going to do anything about it?” Tala shouted. “You know she’s going to bleed you dry just as your parents tried to. Just as OzCorp did.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Vivien shouted back and then looked startled that she’d even dared to say it out loud. “I have no other choice,” she whispered. “This is the only path I can take. And if I fall, then at least I’ll take them down with me!”
Somewhere in all the tumult, Tala was aware of someone else shouting, growing in volume with every second until she realized it was Dexter, shouting through their shared link.
“You are all good people, and you are valid! I appreciate every one of you for being my friend through everything, and I am better for having known you all!”
Tala had no idea how loud the volume on their earpieces could be turned up, but Dexter was hitting the maximum strength, and he was so loud that it was starting to shut out everything else. She could see everyone around her hesitating, finally stopping their arguments long enough to listen.
“Ken!” Dexter hollered. “You were always kind to me, always going out of your way to treat me like I’m a warrior in my own right, even when I can’t fight like the rest of you. Thank you for that. Nya! You are the warmest, kindest, nicest person I know, and I like how you always put other people’s concerns over your own, although you really shouldn’t be doing that too much. But it’s so like you to. Zoe! You always understand how to make everyone feel better just by being in the room with them, and you always know how to cheer me up when I’m at my lowest. Loki, you are so strong! So, so strong. You take on so many responsibilities on your own so it would mean fewer duties for your friends, and I think highly of you all the more for it. Cole, I was scared of you at first, but I understand now that it’s because you don’t like anyone worrying about you, even if they should! And also that one time I was worried about taking on this job, and you sat me down and told me not to worry ’cause I’m good at it and made me feel like I could take on anything, thank you so much! West, you have the purest heart of us all, and I hope you never change. Any pack would be glad to have you as a member. And, Tala—”
Dexter paused to cough, embarrassed.
“I think you’re great. You came into this not knowing anything, but you’ve always risen to the occasion and fought just as hard as everyone else. I think you’re the soul of this team and that everyone is better off for having you here with us. And, er, that’s all I got. And I really mean all of this! It’s not just because I’ve asked the techmages here to amplify this with all the positive reinforcement spells we have on hand. I really, really like all of you! Please don’t fight! Did it work? I’m hoping it worked!”
“If you mean that all the good thoughts you’ve been shouting our way is enough to break the verbally abusive spells that this place is awash in, then I’d say yeah, it kinda did.” Ken grabbed Nya and planted a great big noisy kiss on her lips. Nya made a faint muffle of protest but wrapped her arms around him. “Now that I’ve got my boost, let’s end this and get out of here before something else tells me I’m bad at kissing too.”
He rushed to the stone slab where the flute still lay and leaped, Kusanagi catching on to some of the beams of light, making it glint. For a moment, the sword looked like it was made of two completely different kinds of steel juxtaposed over each other—a gleaming bright blade overlapping one of an opaque, matte black.
He sliced the whole rock in half, and something in the air seemed to shift, the sudden fizzle of magic dissipating loud to Tala’s ears. The stone crumbled noisily, sending up clouds of dust into the air.
But Vivien, nimble as ever, was already dashing forward, having anticipated the move. She snatched up the flute triumphantly before anyone else could, lifting it frantically to her lips.
The awful clash of melody was horrible. Tala was on her knees before she knew it, trying desperately to keep the sound out of her ears. All around her, everyone was following suit, reeling back from the revolting noise. Even Tito Boy and some of the other soldiers dropped to the ground, looking stunned by the sounds they shouldn’t have been able to hear. Vivien herself dropped the flute, hands rising to her head and flinching from the dissonant notes she’d created.
Zoe was the first to shake it off, the first to grab the flute next. She lifted it and Tala cringed, expecting another wave. But a sweet melody flowed out instead, almost as beautiful as what the adarna could make.
Vivien gasped. And then her whole body grew slack, her eyes glazing over. All around her, the shades under her control were doing the same.
“Dexter,” Tala whispered raggedly. “Do you see this?”
“And I can hear it too. I didn’t know Zoe could play.” Alex was back. “I’m opening up a port directly to where your coordinates are. I don’t know what’s happened, but the magic around the place is gone, though I don’t know for how long—I’m guessing until Zoe stops playing. Get out of there!”
Even as he spoke, a looking glass glittered into view before them. Tito Boy gave a signal to the others.
But Nya had other ideas. She was darting toward the other side of the cave, where the hybrid shades were at their thickest.
“Rapunzel!” Ken yelled, but Nya was triumphantly snagging the friendly shade from within a mob of its fellows. Another swipe of her hand scattered a thick cloud of some strange powder over the rest. The shades began to shrivel up, the parts of them that had been human flesh rapidly decaying. Nya reached into her pouch and took out the turquoise-colored box.
There was another flash of bright light. When it was gone, Nya was sitting on the ground, stunned and frustrated. The other shadows were actually backing away from her as if fearful of what they’d witnessed her do. “Dammit,” she groaned. “I was so close!”
Zoe continued to play, though from her strained face, she was struggling.
Vivien pushed through the music to begin another attack, lashing out with her fan again. The blow aimed at Zoe was deflected easily when Cole grasped his sword and swung, countering the force. But Vivien was already scrambling toward a portal that had materialized beside her, slipping through and winking out of view.
Zoe sank to the floor, her breaths coming out in exhausted, uneven pants. “It’s fighting me,” she said in between grunts. “No wonder Siegfried decided to leave it here. It’s like battling a whole army of shades but in my mind.”
“I didn’t even know you could play,” West said.
“Playing the recorder was a prerequisite in the boarding schools I’ve had to attend.” And then Zoe let out a squeak as Cole scooped her up in his arms. “I can walk!” she protested, but she wrapped her arms around his neck anyway.
“I know,” the boy said gruffly. “Carlisle, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry—”
“So am I. I think the flute brought out the worst in all of us. You’re not going to break up with me?”
“I plan to do everything in my power to stay with you.”
“Ken!” There was a second yelp, this time from Nya, when Ken copied Cole’s actions with her. “I’m all right!”
“I’m sorry,” Ken said hastily. “I know you have good reason to not tell me things sometimes. I run my mouth off a lot, and I wind up blurting out a lot of things I shouldn’t even be saying. It was bad of me to demand that, especially when your village is already in danger because they swam all the way to Japan to help us—”
Nya took Ken’s face firmly in her hands and then kissed him thoroughly. “You do run your mouth off sometimes,” she said. “But I still have to keep you in the dark. Please, please trust that I am doing everything to protect you, even as you’re protecting me and everyone else.”
Ken paused. “So you’re saying everything hinges on my not knowing things?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Am I doing a good job, not knowing?”
“You’re doing an excellent job.”
“Well, it’s not like I already know what I’m bloody doing anyway. I don’t think it’s gonna be all that different for me to not know more than what I already don’t.”
“You trust me that much?” Nya’s eyes were shining.
“As long as one of us knows what to do, then that’s all right. And since that’s always been you anyway, it’s not like anything’s really changed, has it?”
“Can we finish up all the apologies and reconciliations at Maidenkeep before someone steals the flute a second time?” Alex asked testily.
Tala helped Ryker back to his feet. The boy was still pale, and his melancholy had not completely gone away after Zoe stopped playing. “Guess you never needed this collar, Tala,” he said with a poor attempt at lighthearted humor. “Seems like my one weakness has always been the past I don’t know how to escape from.”
“Ryker,” Tala said, now gripped with a sudden certainty. “What did you see in the mirror inside the Ryugu-jo?”
“I died,” Ryker said, smiling. “That’s the best contribution I can make to Avalon’s goals, or so the future says. At least you’ve got one less enemy to worry about now.”